


lost a part of your existence (in the war against yourself)

by thedarknesswithin (babylxxrry)



Category: JackSepticEye (YouTube RPF), Markiplier (YouTube RPF), Septiplier - Fandom, Youtube RPF
Genre: ? - Freeform, Alternate Universe - Dark, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Angst, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Halloween, Horror, M/M, Multi, dark and anti made deals with mark and jack's parents when they were little okay, idk - Freeform, okay u know what this actually is quite sweet in a twisted way
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-05
Updated: 2016-11-16
Packaged: 2018-08-29 06:21:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8478592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/babylxxrry/pseuds/thedarknesswithin
Summary: Two dark shadows lurking in the night.Two countries.Two homes.Two small children, one four, one five.One Halloween night.
[or the one where anti and dark made deals with mark and jack's parents and things go wrong too easily.]





	1. one

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Blessed With a Curse](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6817678) by [GalaxyGhosty](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GalaxyGhosty/pseuds/GalaxyGhosty), [Quintessentia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quintessentia/pseuds/Quintessentia). 



> i was inspired and this happened?   
> i'm testing the septiplier waters right now- i've been in the fandom and reading fics for a while now, but this is my first septiplier fic so lol
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> title from troye sivan's the fault in our stars

The story goes like this.

In Ireland, a prank ritual gone wrong. The room shimmers with darkness and pain and everyone in the house is knocked to the floor except one- a four-year-old standing in the doorway. He grasps at the way the darkness is moving and shaping into a human form, unable to comprehend what is happening but absolutely fascinated. The form laughs, reaching out with dark tendrils to pat the child’s head. His mother pleads with the spirit, and it promises not to hurt any of them or the child on one condition. _Anything_ , the desperate mother says, _anything at all. Just don’t hurt us._ The condition is that this child must be raised with upmost care and he must not come to permanent harm or disfigurement, and that by the time he is eighteen, he must be living in America, alone. The mother agrees in tearful gratefulness.

In America, a video game that led to so much more. A seven-year-old unknowingly accesses and downloads a dark web game, something that isn’t harmful on its own. He leaves his computer logged in when he goes to get ready for trick-or-treating, and his little brother who’s not but five spies an opportunity. When the five-year-old hears his brother leave the house and his parents take up position at the front door, he springs into action, scrabbling up onto the chair that’s just a little too high for him. He closes his eyes and picks a game at random. The one he picks is just a little scary, and the ending jumpscare is a white screen with pair of black eyes with red pinpricks for pupils. It’s animated to look like it’s jumping out of the screen, and the boy would later swear that he felt a shiver when the screen blacked out to the menu page. He doesn’t think much of it, though, until he sees the same eyes watching him from his closet that night. He tries to ignore them until the closet door slides open slowly, and a not-quite-solid form glides out. He screams and his father comes to check on him. His father makes a murmured deal with this… this _thing_ , and the boy goes back to sleep.


	2. two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> jack reminisces

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi so i have two other wips happening as i write this and countless other ideas, so apologies if updates are sporadic :/ i try my best with what little time i have 
> 
> KEY  
> << is moving back in time  
> >> moving forward in time  
> \- will eventually mean breaks in ideas or plot.

“Top ‘o the morning to ye laddies! My name is Jacksepticeye and today…”

“Hello everybody, my name is Markiplier…”

-

It’s been just about two decades since that Halloween night, and through a strange series of coincidences, Jack and Mark share an apartment somewhere in LA. Halloween is rolling around again, and they’re both excited as fuck. Jack’s been planning something to do with his alter-ego, Anti, but he doesn’t really know what Mark has planned. Maybe something big, maybe nothing at all. It’s going to be fun, although the month of September has been kind of odd, with things being misplaced here and there more than they normally are, and once, Jack swore he saw a shadow standing at the foot of his bed that disappeared when he blinked.

The first time something _really_ weird happens is when Jack wakes up on the sofa one night, both of them knowing full well that they fell asleep upstairs in their respective rooms.

“Jack? What are you doing down here?” Mark asks with a yawn as he stumbles down the stairs on his way to the kitchen.

Jack stretches, then pauses and looks around. “I… don’t know? I yelled goodnight from my room and then went to sleep, right?”

“Yeah, so did you sleepwalk or some shit?”

Jack shrugs. “Dunno. ‘ve never sleepwalked in my life, but I suppose there’s a first time for everything?”

Mark mimics his shrug and goes to make coffee. Jack rubs his eyes and stands, almost falling again when his vision whites out for a moment from the headrush. He knows he needs to start on his videos early today, since he has two longer episodes of two playthroughs to record. He’s also got a couple lined up to review from Robin. He steals Mark’s coffee and grabs a piece of toast before heading up to his recording room.

The videos from Robin are perfect, and the little webcam glitches they’ve started adding are even better. There are a couple that he doesn’t remember requesting, but they work well with his plans so he doesn’t bother texting to ask.

Jack records a couple hours’ worth of playthrough material before he lets himself take a short break. Mark’s recording room door is closed and he can hear Mark cackling at something, so he doesn’t bother him.

He goes and gets another cup of coffee even though it’s almost lunchtime and curls onto the sofa with his phone, and it’s not long before he stumbles across a septiplier fic on his Tumblr dash. It’s a growing-up-together, friends-to-lovers thing, according to the tags, and it opens a floodgate of memories, some good, some bad, but generally just impactful to his life.

<< 

He’s ten, and their family is moving to America. He remembers boxes and boxes, so many of them piled higher than his head. The house is oddly empty, though, despite the boxes. He wanders through the maze of cardboard and plastic and finds his way to the basement. He hasn’t been down there for a few months, but he’s always felt an odd attraction, almost magnetism, to that door. He opens the door and slips down the stairs unnoticed while everyone else bustles around, packing their belonging in more boxes.

Down here, it’s pretty bare. The floor has dusty outlines of the cabinets and rugs that used to reside on the cold concrete, and it all looks just normal, drab, even, until he takes a closer look at the circle of dust where the biggest rug used to sit. In the center, there’s a little etching, maybe two inches in diameter, in the concrete, a star-and-circle symbol that Jack has never seen before. His hand is drawn to it like nothing else. When he touches it, the lines glow bright green and then fade, and Jack sits back on his heels when dark, wispy smoke starts appearing from the symbol.

“Hello, Sean,” a voice rings somehow in his head and all around at the same time. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen you.”

“Wh-What are you?” Jack asks, more curious than afraid.

“My name is Anti. What or who I am doesn’t matter. All that I ask is that you take me with you when you move.” The smoke starts to meld into a shape that’s vaguely human.

“How do I do that? You’re not even a thing, as far as I can tell.”

“Ah, see, how it’s going to work is that you’re just going to hold out your hand and I’ll just go in your head. I’m not going to hurt you by being there. Is that alright with you?”

Jack shrugs. “Sure,” he starts as a thought occurs to him. “Will I have to tell Ma?”

Anti chuckles. “There’s no need. She’ll know, young one. Now hurry up and open up your hand. They’re not worried about you yet, but they will be soon.”

Jack holds out his hand, palm up, and watches in fascination as the smoke condenses into a little ball that absorbs into his hand without much effort. He watches as a chill seems to pass up his arm, stopping at the junction just between his shoulder and his neck.

_This part might hurt just a little, okay? It’s going to be fast, though. If you close your eyes and lie down, it’ll hurt less._

Jack lies on his back, ignoring the dust like any good ten-year-old. He closes his eyes as he feels the cold heading up the back of his neck. There’s a sharp little pang at the base of his skull that makes him yelp quietly before it fades away.

_Thank you, child._

Jack goes back upstairs and melds right back into the yelling and the packing and the laughing, and if his Ma notices that one of his eyes is a little too fluorescent of a green to be natural, she’s not about to tell him.

>> 

He’s twelve, and his eye is mildly infected and it itches quite a bit. Anti keeps telling him not to itch it, though, and he trusts him enough to listen.

>> 

He’s fourteen, and he’s settled into America quite well. From long conversations with Anti, he’s figured out that the thing sharing his brain is, indeed, a demon, but quite a nice one, not the type to bend heads 180 degrees backwards or possess little children without their consent- hence, that thing that happened back in Ireland.

_Though I do know some of those types,_ Anti had laughed. _They’re not particularly friendly and really just want hosts for the fun of it, so they can kill them and haunt their families for eternity._

He doesn’t know exactly why Anti has him as a host, though, and when he asks, Anti skillfully changes the topic.

_Well, I have my reasons,_ goes the general answer, _but really, it’s for one of the most abstract concepts that humans have that we demons shouldn’t even be able to comprehend._

>> 

He’s sixteen, and he’s just started doing YouTube as a creator. Anti had suggested watching someone named Markiplier, and Jack had liked his content instantly. Mark was only eighteen, but he was hilarious and had a decent following of around three thousand. The two struck up a close friendship, and when Jack turned seventeen, he moved in with Mark, and Anti had been content with that.

>> 

Seven years on, Jack knows Anti is still in there, but he’s been very quiet over the years. Every Halloween, though, Jack knows that he has to get to sleep by ten, or else Anti will take over his body while he’s still inhabiting it, but that’s a story for another day. Anti hasn’t told him specifically what he does with Jack’s body while Jack is asleep that one night, but he’s let slip enough to piece together that he’s using the night to meet and talk to someone. Jack’s been prodding Anti more lately, and the demon’s been particularly restless this year, muttering nonsensical things in the back of Jack’s head and apparently making a to-do list for Halloween night. He tries to keep out of Jack’s way, though, so Jack leaves him be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trying to find a clean transition to dark&mark's backstory, so the next chapter might be a while unless i get lucky and stumble on something   
> leave a comment or kudos if you liked it! (i reply to every single comment btw :))

**Author's Note:**

> ay this first chapter is legit about a third of the length i normally post but i wanted to see if anyone would be interested in reading so please let me know :o


End file.
